Cesar Aira - The Hare

This then was all that Clarke’s misunderstanding amounted to: an instant. Fleeting as are all instants, even when placed end to end as it were, it passed, and he was now in animated conversation with the group of Indians.

“Do you live nearby?”

“Just down here.”

“Which leader do you follow?”

“Pillán is the name of our present monarch. If you are not in such a hurry as to make a short halt impossible, we should like to introduce you to him. We receive so few visits!”

“Pillán? I have not heard the name.”

“I’m not surprised. He’s only very recently taken up the position.”

“Ah, yes? Did he succeed to it?”

“After a certain fashion. In reality, I am sorry to tell you that we have suffered a power struggle, a civil war one might say — if that were not too grand a term for our tiny, submerged society.”

“My condolences. A civil war is still a civil war, even if it takes place within a single family.”

“By an extension of its very meaning!”

“If you like.”

A silence.

“Well. . would you do us the honor?”

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s no problem.” At this point, Clarke thought it desirable to introduce a note of democracy. “Wait until my friend here can speak, and I’ll ask his opinion.”

Gauna was still gasping for breath. The Indian who had been doing the talking made a suggestion which combined the most delicate courtesy with the most calculated sadism.

“Ask him now, so he can be considering his answer. After all, he can hear.”

These words struck home. Gauna rolled up his blanket and slung it on his horse’s back.

“To judge by his attitude,” Clarke said, lowering his voice, “I would guess that he agrees. Where are your horses?”

“Nowhere.”

“Pardon?”

“We don’t use horses.”

“What?”

“Well, it’s nothing to be so surprised at. We don’t need them, you see.”

“I don’t understand how you can do without such a useful animal if you live on the plains.”

“That’s just it: we don’t live on the surface.”

“Gentlemen, we’ll go with you.”

“Leave your horses right here. Josecito — ” he pointed to one of his followers “ — will stay to keep an eye on them, although it’s hardly necessary. For your peace of mind.”

“Let’s go,” Clarke said. Gauna came up, his eyes still bleary.

The Indian again:

“Far be it from me to give you advice, but I’d just like to mention that it seems one of your party is still asleep.”

“Mister Gauna?” said Clarke, somewhat put out at what he considered an unnecessary dig at his tracker’s continuing breathing problems. “Don’t worry about him. I don’t think he’s sleepwalking.”

“Right. I beg your pardon,” said the Indian.

“Are you feeling all right, Gauna?” Clarke asked him, to draw the matter to a close.

“Perfectly fine.”

“Just a moment,” the Indian interjected, pointing to the gaucho. “Is this Gauna?”

“Who else could he be?” Clarke answered, by now exasperated.

“What’s his name then?”

The Englishman followed the direction of the savage’s gaze, and was not a little surprised to see none other than Carlos Alzaga Prior sleeping peacefully at his feet.

“Of course, Carlos!” he exclaimed. “I’d completely forgotten him. Just imagine. If you hadn’t pointed him out, I would probably have left him here. I don’t know where I’ve put my head today.” He bent down to wake the youth up, but stopped halfway. “Look how he’s sleeping. The sleep of the innocent. Isn’t it a shame to wake him?”

“A real shame,” agreed Gauna.

Clarke shook Carlos. He pulled his boots on sulkily.

“These gentlemen,” Clarke told him, “have invited us to take breakfast in their tents, which just happen to be nearby.”

“They are not tents,” the Indian corrected him, “but we do hope our food will be to your liking.”

“Well then, let’s be off.”

The savages asked them to follow. They walked a short way into the whiteness, and Clarke realized that the fog was not solid, but occurred in pockets. They climbed up among the rocks, not far, but probably just enough: it seemed that at any moment they must reach the ceiling of mist, but instead it appeared to climb with them. Suddenly, without any transition, they were walking in an interior. It was obvious they had entered a cave. As they were still surrounded by mist for a while, their eyesight had time to grow accustomed to the new surroundings.

Pleased with the surprise he had given them, the Indian, after nudging the companion he was walking alongside (the third Indian was behind, next to Gauna, at whom for some unknown reason he was staring with open admiration), turned and said:

“We live in here.”

“How incredible!” exclaimed Clarke.

“You can have some beer and cakes as soon as we get there.”

“That’s all right, I’m not particularly hungry.”

“Can you see?”

“More or less.”

“We’ll soon have torches.”

Sure enough, a little further on, where the cave became narrower and really dark, the Indian took some small torches from the wall and proceeded to light them. Each of the three Indians held one and positioned themselves alongside the visitors, to shine it down at the floor for them. The ground was of a whitish stone, and was worn quite smooth by the tread of bare feet. It soon began to tilt downward, so that they had to take more care of how they walked. They turned bends, went down rough-hewn steps, sometimes even had to jump. Up ahead and behind them, everything was dark. Clarke had viewed the excursion as something perfectly natural, and far from worrying him, the unexpected turn (or rather descent) events were taking seemed to him delightful. Part of this delight came from the cruel satisfaction of knowing that Gauna must be furious. This reminded him of the tale the gaucho had told him the previous day. He had to admit it was a very solid and plausible story, but that was entirely due to the fact that it included all (or nearly all) the details of what had happened in reality; by the same token, there must be other stories which did the same, even though they were completely different. Everything that happened, isolated and observed by an interpretative judgment, or even simply by the imagination, became an element that could then be combined with any number of others. Personal invention was responsible for creating the overall structure, for seeing to it that these elements formed unities. Of course, Clarke was not going to put himself to so much trouble. . but he could swear, a priori, that apart from Gauna’s version, there must be an endless number of other possible stories. Moreover, between one story and another, even one that was really told and another that remained virtual, hidden and unborn in an indolent fantasy, there was not a gap but a continuum. And the existence of such a continuum, which at that moment appeared to Clarke as an undeniable truth, created a natural multiplicity, of which Gauna’s story was shown to be merely one more example. But Clarke had no intention of telling Gauna this, because that would be to run the risk of no longer counting on his company. To Gauna, his story was not simply one among many, but the only one.

Even though they were going deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth, they could still feel currents of air, and from time to time crossed chambers with lofty ceilings. Then all of a sudden a light shone ahead of them. “We’re almost there,” their Indian guide said. Turning to his companion who was still admiring Gauna, he told him: “Llanquén, go and tell Pillán.”

“OK,” Llanquén said, and scuttled off.